The Brown Study | Page 7

little mouth.
"I don't see how you dare do it. You might choke the child to death."
"Not a bit. He'll swallow a lot of atmosphere and it may give him a pain,
but that's better than starving. Isn't it, Baby?"
"You act as if you had half a dozen of your own. What in the world do
you know about babies?"
"Enough to puff me up with pride. Mrs. Murdison, my right-hand
neighbour, is the mother of five; Mrs. Kelcey, on my left, has six--and
two of them are twins. One twin was desperately ill a while ago. I
became well acquainted with it--and with the other five."
"Don!" Again his sister gazed at him as if she found him past
comprehension. "You--_you!_ What would your friends--our
friends--say, if they knew?"
Putting down the teaspoon and withdrawing the towel, Brown snuggled
the baby in his left arm. Warmth and food had begun their work in

soothing the little creature, and it was quiet, its eyelids drooping
heavily.
He got up, carried the baby to the couch, with one hand arranged a
steamer rug lying there so that it made a warm nest, and laid the small
bundle in it.
Then he returned to his chair by the fire. He lifted his eyes for a long,
keen look into his sister's face, until she stirred restlessly under the
inspection.
"Well, what do you see?" she asked.
"I see," said Brown slowly, "a woman who is trying to live without
remembering her immortality."
She shivered suddenly, there before the blazing fire. "I'm not sure that I
believe in it," she said fiercely. "Now I've shocked you, Don, but I can't
help it. I'm not sure of anything, these days. That's why--"
"Why you want to forget. But you can't forget. And the reason why you
can't forget is because you do believe in it. Every day people are trying
to forget one of the greatest facts in the universe. They may deny it
with their lips, but with their hearts they know it is true."
She did not answer. Her brother drew his chair closer, leaned forward,
and took one of the jewelled hands in his. He spoke very gently, and in
his voice was a certain quality of persuasion which belongs not to all
voices which would persuade.
"Sue, make room in your life for a little child. You need him."
Her glance evaded his, flashed past his to the small, still bundle on the
couch. Then, suddenly, into her unhappy eyes leaped a suspicion. She
straightened in her chair.
"You don't mean--you're not suggesting--"
He smiled, comprehending. "No, no--nothing like that. Your heart isn't
big enough for that--yet. It's the mothers of children who make room
for the waifs, or those who have long been mothers in heart and have
been denied. You don't belong to either of those classes, do you?"
She drew a stifled breath. "You don't know what you are talking about,
Don. How could you, a bachelor like you?"
"Couldn't I? Well, Sue, if fathers may be divided into the same two
classes, I might be found in one of them."
She stared at him. "You? Oh, I can't believe it. You could have married
long ago, if you had wanted to. You could have married

anybody--simply anybody!"
"You do me too much honour--or discredit, I'm not just sure which."
"But it's true. With your position--and your money! Rich and brilliant
clergymen aren't so common, Donald Brown. And your personality,
your magnetism! Men care for you. Women have always hung on your
words!"
He made a gesture of distaste; got up.
"Sterility of soul is a worse thing than sterility of body," said he. "But
sometimes--God cures the one when He cures the other."
"But you never prescribed this strange thing before."
He smiled. "I've been learning some things out here, Sue, that I never
learned before. One of them is how near God is to a little child."
"You've learned that--of your neighbours?" Her accent was
indescribable.
"Of my neighbours--and friends."
It was time for her to go. He helped her into her great fur coat and
himself fastened it in place. When she was ready she turned from the
window from which she had tried in vain to see her surroundings, and
threw at her brother a question which seemed to take him unawares.
"Don, do you know anything about Helena these days?"
Though his face did not change, something about him suggested the
mental bracing of himself for a shock. He shook his head.
"She's dropped everything she used to care for. Nobody knows why.
Her mother's in despair about her--you know what a society leader Mrs.
Forrest has always been. She can't understand Helena--nor can
anybody."
"She's not ill?"
"Apparently not; she's as